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Key Political Party Leaves Indian Governing Coalition

Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda's nine-month-old minority Government was on the verge of collapse today after the Congress Party abruptly withdrew its support, thus depriving his 13-party coalition of the votes it needs to sustain a parliamentary majority.

The move appeared to set the stage for a new period of political uncertainty in India, and possibly even for a new general election less than a year after the inconclusive election last May that brought the Deve Gowda Government to power.

But most Indian politicians appeared to think the most likely immediate outcome would be a scramble to form a new coalition, possibly with a different Prime Minister.

A mainly lackluster figure with a background in regional politics in the southern state of Karnataka, Mr. Deve Gowda, 63, has failed to develop a major political following since he emerged last year as a compromise candidate for the Prime Minister's job. As much as anything, he is known to most Indians for his habit of falling asleep on public occasions.

There has been a broad consensus on key policy issues such as efforts to liberalize the economy and on offers of an improved relationship with Pakistan, which are currently being tested in the first high-level talks between the two countries in more than three years. The talks began in New Delhi on Friday and will conclude on Monday, Indian officials said, without any interruption as a result of the Government crisis.

The crisis began when the Congress Party leader, Sitaram Kesri, gave India's titular President, Shankar Dayal Sharma, a letter notifying him of the party's decision to end its support for the Government. Mr. Deve Gowda took office last June on the basis of an agreement that the Congress Party's parliamentary bloc would back the Government without joining the governing coalition or taking any Government posts.

Mr. Kesri said at a news conference that his party hoped to lead a new Government, although it was far from clear how this would be possible given the complex political arithmetic involved. The general election in May produced the most fractured Parliament in India's half-century as an independent nation, with 22 parties winning seats in the 545-seat lower house, and none of them winning even a third of the seats.

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The Congress Party currently has about 140 seats, its smallest number ever. Another possible claimant for power, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, together with allied parties, has about 190 seats.

After an emergency Cabinet meeting, a spokesman for Mr. Deve Gowda said the Prime Minister would not resign and would wait for President Sharma to make a move. Indian constitutional experts said that he had several options, the most likely being to ask Mr. Deve Gowda to prove his majority in Parliament, requiring a vote of confidence in the lower house.

Mr. Kesri gave a list of reasons for ending Congress Party backing of the Deve Gowda Government, including the Government's supposed failure to prevent a worsening of relations between India's mosaic of ethnic, language and religious groups. But rival politicians, some in his own party, said that Mr. Kesri may have made the move to create a political crisis that would head off a group that is seeking to topple him as Congress Party leader and replace him with a younger man.

Mr. Kesri's detractors in the party have said that instead of beginning to rebuild the party after its 1996 election defeat, Mr. Kesri has been in a hurry to become Prime Minister himself.

Mr. Kesri, who is in his late 70's, had been a minor Congress Party functionary for many years when he unexpectedly emerged as the successor to P. V. Narasimha Rao, the Congress Party Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996. Mr. Rao was forced from the party leadership earlier this year when he was indicted in several corruption scandals.

Many political commentators believe the most likely outcome is for the so-called United Front, the coalition headed by Mr. Deve Gowda, to reconstitute itself under a different leader, possibly G. K. Moopanar, who heads a regional party from Tamil Nadu in south India that has been part of the Government coalition.

Mr. Moopanar, a senior figure in the Congress Party for many years, might be an acceptable Prime Minister to those in the Congress Party who would rather back a new coalition than face another election.

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A version of this article appears in print on March 31, 1997, on Page A00009 of the National edition with the headline: Key Political Party Leaves Indian Governing Coalition. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe